


you can live in my body if the world is unjust

by elephantastic



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Oral Sex, Vaginal Fingering, canon-typical levels of angst but make it horny, i apologise all the fucks that alex vetoed in the show ended up here instead, me and daisy @ basira: everybody's traumatised bitch let's get you some pussy, me swatting at my thing for service topping as it rears its imposing head, we! can't! keep! doing! this!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:13:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21548986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elephantastic/pseuds/elephantastic
Summary: Some days, it seems like all she got back from the Buried is a Daisy-shaped hole, but tonight, in their bed, warm from the blankets and Basira's body heat, mouth still sweet with mango, projecting heady intent with every move, Daisy feels solid enough to have her own gravitational pull.Basira pitches into it head first.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 34
Kudos: 164





	you can live in my body if the world is unjust

**Author's Note:**

> i've fudged some emotional timelines but this happens post ep 148

"You threatened to kill him?" Daisy cuts Basira off sharply. 

Basira glances up at her. Daisy's practically see-through with exhaustion, but stamped across her forehead is the scowl she gets whenever she's settling in for a proper fight. Basira's almost relieved, messed up as that is. They haven't had so much as a heated conversation in weeks, circling each other like wary dogs, and Daisy's been fading faster. Going almost blank. Giving Basira the insane urge to _push_.

"Yes, I did." 

Hurt bleeds into Daisy's voice. "Do you have any idea what you sound like?" 

"How else should I sound, Daisy? He's been feeding on people. And now he's making excuses for himself to keep doing it. Again! His bullshit with the Web didn't take, so he's looking for another way out. He needs to be held accountable."

"Is that what you're telling yourself? He needs to be checked, so you're giving yourself full operational discretion?" 

Basira grinds her teeth together. 

"Yeah, that's what I thought. You won't even look at me right now. You're taking your own shit out on Jon, Basira. I did far worse before you stepped in to stop me, and you never—"

Basira brings her eyes up just to prove a point, but she's feeling caught out and defensive, and it's harder than it should be.

"Yes, exactly. I never. It's funny, he tried to use the exact same argument. Guess I'm learning from my mistakes." 

"I _knew_ this was a control thing! It always is with you. You're Jon's friend, but he's responsible for his own actions, and if you don't think he feels that responsibility very keenly then you haven't been paying attention. What he needs right now isn't death threats, for fuck's sake, it's a fraction of the compassion you seem to have no difficulty showing me."

"Because you're fighting it! And you're hurting for it. I—"

"I'm not hurting, Basira. Look at me. I'm dying." Daisy's matter-of-fact tone lands like a kick to Basira's guts. 

"What the fuck, Daisy."

Daisy sighs, "I know neither of us wants to face this head on, but you can't hold me up as an example of gold star behaviour and just ignore what it's costing me. Us." 

Basira feels hysterical, like they're having entirely different conversations. A thousand indignant, wounded questions well up in her mouth. The one she manages to spit out rings childish and inadequate.

"How are you so calm about this? It's like you don't even care!"

"I don't think I can. Not properly.” 

She continues quickly, interrupting Basira’s outraged inhale before it can go anywhere. 

“No, let me explain. I mean I physically can’t let myself. It’s the blood. It’s getting worse, I think? At first it was only when I got angry that it got, I don’t know, loud enough to be dangerous? But now it’s there all the time, contaminating almost everything I think. Or feel. This vile, eager throb that’s—” 

She’s gone all fidgety, the way she can't help when something's really bothering her. Basira watches her jaw clench as she wrests herself back under control. 

“It’s biding its time, waiting for the moment I slip up, and I know that if I give it an inch it’ll take a mile. So I don't. I can't anymore, Basira. But this is what not feeding it means for me. For Jon, too. This is what he's up against."

"So you're saying what, exactly? That you're just giving up?" 

Daisy looks startled by the way Basira's voice twists around the words, shrill and strangled. 

"No! Basira, no. Of course not." 

Daisy reaches out. Her cold fingers land on Basira's forearm where she'd pushed up her sleeves to make dinner. 

"I just... We can't keep pretending that this isn't happening. We—I thought that weaning myself off would be enough, but it's not. Obviously. And I don't know how to solve this."

"How is that any different? You think you're _dying_ , and you didn't bother to tell me you were just going to lie down and take it?"

It's wrong. It's all wrong, and Daisy's face has gone hard and pinched.

"I'm sorry I can't be the strong, decisive action woman you want me to be anymore, Basira, but don't give me that shit. Take a good look around. I wasn't the only one willing to be passive about this."

Basira barks a bitter laugh. "Okay, let's be active. Why aren't we talking about the possibility of you hunting again?"

"Because there's nothing to talk about."

"That's great. Super helpful, Daisy." 

"You don't know what you're on about, Basira."

"Then stop with the cryptic fucking hints and tell me!"

"You're not going to like it."

Basira makes an exasperated sound in her nose, which conveys, she hopes, that she really hasn't liked any of this so far, so they might as well rip the plaster off.

"Fine. Fine, okay. In the Unknowing, at the end, the Hunt took over. It was instinct, I think. But I felt myself… Change? My body, my mind, they just went. It was different than usual, I couldn't feel—there was almost nothing of me left. Even in the coffin, when I couldn't hear it anymore, it took so long to come back. Makes me think—” Daisy stops, corrects herself "—makes me sure that if I give into it again, I'm not getting myself back at all."

A bottomless well of ice-cold panic bores straight down through Basira's stomach as she processes Daisy's words. No matter how hard she tries, the universe keeps finding new and inventive ways to pull the rug out from under her, leaving her on bloodied, battered knees, scrabbling for the last scraps of her control and for options that evaporate if she so much as looks at them sideways. She can't think, can't breathe, so she bolts.

"I need some air." 

"Come on, don't—"

Basira grabs her keys, shoves her feet into her shoes, and throws herself out the door. She feels like shit for running, after Daisy laid herself out, all bare and scared, but stopping has become a physical impossibility. Hitting the street floods her with a split second of profound release before her thoughts wheel out again in wild, frantic gyres. 

She hadn't _seen_ this. Hadn't wanted to see it. Somewhere deep down she'd believed that, if things got too far, Daisy would be able to start hunting again. It would tear her up inside, cost more than either of them were willing to give. But she'd be alive. They'd still be ahead of it. Have some space to manoeuvre, even if it meant dumping their morals and Daisy’s sense of self by the wayside. 

But Basira's face has just been shoved up against the merciless reality of the situation, and she doesn't know if she can take it. She's been sitting on her hands while Daisy's been staring death in the eye whichever way she turned, caught between her body shutting down and the possibility of disappearing into the Hunt, and now they're so far behind that they're running after a deadline, in a horribly literal sense, that they've maybe already missed.

She’ll fly apart at the seams if she acknowledges the sickening sense of powerlessness that's constricting around her, so she gives her rage free rein instead. Allows herself to hate the slow wasting, hate the chokehold this disgusting eldritch fuckery has on Daisy's soul, hate that she's chosen to submit to it and that, in the end, it was barely a choice at all. Wishes she could rend the Institute and Elias, that conniving little bitch, into a bloody, pulpy mess. She's furious at Jon, too, an ugly, white-hot kind of anger that eats at her guts and warps right back on herself, pathetic and useless as she is. 

This noxious slurry of feelings congeals inside her, unimpeded by the finely-tuned balancing act of denial and self-delusion that had been keeping it at bay, until the suffocating press of it makes her want to throw up. 

Her feet have automatically taken her on one of her running circuits, and her rapid pace forces her to mind her breathing. It helps. Familiar sights go past. The hazardously sharp edges of her thoughts get sanded off as they cycle through her mind over and over. The panic fades into a seething, unrelenting sadness deep in her belly. Eventually, even that drains away. 

As she completes her loop, she feels emptied. So tired it hurts. No energy, no solution, no idea how to flip this shitty fucking script. She wants Daisy. Just wants to be normal and real with Daisy for one fucking minute. 

Her eyes snag on the brightly lit window of their local fruit and veg shop, and she grinds to a halt. She thinks of their abandoned dinner as she eyes the okra, the ginger and the sad-looking plantains. Sanaa waves from behind the glass, and starts mouthing exaggeratedly, which tends to mean she's hiding the Good Stuff near the till, away from the undiscerning eyes and grabby hands of the pedestrian masses. Basira pushes the door open to investigate; good a way as any to kick off an apology.

When she gets home, the flat is dark. The low murmur coming from their room tells her that Daisy's holed up in bed with a comfort film, the sound turned way down. Basira would bet the perfectly ripe mango she just managed to wheedle out of Sanaa despite her lack of pocket change that it's Pirates of the Caribbean. 

She's careful as she carves up the fruit, letting the ritual calm her hands and her head. The rich smell makes her think of her big sister, wrapped up as it is in memories of sharing and shelter. Makes her think, too, of the first time she'd done this for Daisy, dark eyes watching her with the same interest and anticipation they always have. A stray droplet snakes down her wrist. She stops it with her tongue. 

Daisy lifts a corner of the covers as soon as Basira appears in the doorway with her mushy, fragrant peace offering. She waits for Basira to sit down with the bowl in her lap, before slumping against her shoulder and stealing the single fork out of Basira's fingers. 

"God, this is good."

Basira hums, grateful that Daisy is playing along with the gentle illusion that this could be any other night. Any other fight. They pass the fork back and forth as Keira Knightley gets Jack Sparrow methodically wasted on a beach. Basira cheats, letting Daisy have the lion's share, and goes hunting for her hand under the covers as soon as they're done. 

They’re quiet, mindful of the tentative truce they’ve reached without words. Basira’s wiped out. The idea of poking at this, spilling her guts out for Daisy to see, makes her want to pull the covers over her head and seal herself away in an airless hole. But the idea of going back to the sterile strain of distance and unspoken truths is somehow worse. Basira’s sick and tired of tentative. They need to finish this. 

"I'm sorry," she whispers into Daisy's hair.

"So am I." 

Daisy shifts, and the TV flips off. They breathe with each other in the semi-darkness for a moment. Basira feels the need to specify.

"I'm sorry I left. I know you hate it. Everything just got a bit much."

"S'okay. You always come back." 

It's not, not really, but Basira can't afford to stop at the first hurdle. Daisy's thumb draws half-moons across the back of her hand. 

Some things are easier said in the dark, others come up burning like bile regardless.

"I understand that you can't be who you used to be. And I want to be fine with that, I don't want to resent you. But sometimes I—I do. It's horrible. It messes me up, and then I'm a bitch about it. I'm sorry." 

She forces the words out with the last of her air, and her harsh inhale seems too loud and vulnerable in the quiet room. Daisy twists up to land a fervent kiss on her jaw. Basira's stomach flips at this gentle show of reassurance she's not sure she deserves. 

"I meant it, you know. I haven't given up. And I won't," Daisy says, with the kind of conviction Basira hasn't heard from her in a while.

"Thank you. For saying that. I don't know that I could handle it if you did. If you do." Daisy is still and silent against her, waiting for her to finish. "Jon asked, just after you'd got out. I told him I'd never leave you, and I meant it. Just, please. Don't leave me either."

Her voice wobbles dangerously, and Daisy makes a soft, sad noise of sympathy. 

"And you were right. I didn't want to face this, and I didn't want to talk about it. I—I'm not blaming you, but you should have _told_ me." 

"I know. I’m sorry.” Daisy sounds very small. "I was scared. Of admitting it to myself. Admitting it to you. Of—" 

_Of you walking out, of you treating me like you've been treating Jon._ Basira can think of several ways to fill in the rest of that sentence, and they all make her feel sick.

"Fuck, Daisy. I never wanted to leave you all alone with this. I should've realised, with Jon—"

"No, that's not what I meant." Daisy stops, as if choosing her words carefully. "Look, obviously your whole thing with Jon hasn't been helping. And you need to get a grip. But it's not—that's separate. I never really thought you were going to turn on me. I just knew there was no way to tell you that wasn't going to hurt us both." 

Basira closes her eyes and presses her cheek to the top of Daisy's head.

"How sure are you? About not being able to hunt again?"

She knows she's not going to get the answer she wants, but right now she's paralysed, white-knuckling a flimsy lifeline of hope. They can't afford that. She needs to hear the words to be able to let it go and get moving.

"Completely sure." 

There's defeat in Daisy's tone, and Basira doesn't find any of the clarity she was hoping for. Instead, the freezing pit of fear yawns back open, obscene and hungry. She can't run this time, so she starts talking. 

"Okay, well, if this isn't working, we'll figure something else out. Jon can take on more of the ritual stuff, and we can start researching properly. There has to be another way, right? We just haven't been paying attention. Maybe I can figure out some leverage on Elias, get him to—"

Her voice is abrasive, far too loud, and she doesn't realise she's compulsively tightened her grip until Daisy breaks it to sit up, cross-legged, tugging Basira around to mirror her.

"Basira."

Basira holds her breath as fingertips skim across her cheekbones. Daisy has her back to the window, silhouetted against the glow of the street. Basira doesn't need to see her face to feel the particular, almost physical quality of Daisy's gaze on her; her skin prickles with it. 

Daisy unpins her hijab and slips it off the back of her head, using her hold on the material pooled around Basira's throat to pull her close. Basira's hand finds Daisy's knee, trailing up her thigh as she leans into the kiss. She opens her mouth under Daisy's, just to have her break away and free Basira's hair from its bun. The slide of fabric as Daisy pulls the scarf out from under it is like a caress in itself. Especially when she immediately replaces skin-warmed cotton with her open palm, steady and firm on the back of Basira's neck.

Some days, it seems like all she got back from the Buried is a Daisy-shaped hole, but tonight, in their bed, warm from the blankets and Basira's body heat, mouth still sweet with mango, projecting heady intent with every move, Daisy feels solid enough to have her own gravitational pull. 

Basira pitches into it head first. 

She exhales shakily, her forehead pressed into Daisy's collarbone, as Daisy cups the back of her skull, then smoothes a hand down Basira's shoulders with slow, deliberate tenderness. 

"Oh, love. You're all right. We're all right," Daisy whispers.

Her breath curls against the shell of Basira's ear, but Basira wants Daisy's air on her face, in her mouth. She tilts her chin up, asking for it, and Daisy yields. Their kiss is a messy, needy thing. Basira's too worked up to make it good, but Daisy meets her willingly. Her touch is a soothing contrast as she rucks up Basira's top to lay hands against her stomach. 

Something desperate is still thrashing under Basira's skin, so she pushes, again and again, and Daisy keeps giving, easily, whispering Basira's name, letting her pull them down into the sheets. She slides a hand into Basira's sweats, cups her over her underwear and presses in firmly, giving Basira an inflexible point of pressure against which to find some relief. 

"Hhgn, Daisy." 

"I know, I know. Let's get you out of those."

"You too, Daisy, please. Want to feel you." She sounds whiny and overwrought, which would be humiliating if she weren’t so fucking frantic.

After several long moments of uncoordinated yanking, they're both naked on their sides, and Basira can haul Daisy in close with a hand on her ass. She hooks a knee over Daisy's hip, bites at her mouth—

"Hey, Basira. Hey. Slow down, okay? I've got you." 

The first few words come out muffled by Basira's tongue, but Daisy pulls away. She rearranges them gently, sliding an arm under Basira's head so it's pillowed on her bicep. Her forearm is grounding against the back of Basira's neck, and with her hand clasped on Basira's shoulder, she's holding Basira tight and holding them together. Her other hand cradles Basira's face as she kisses her sweetly, on her mouth, on both her eyelids. 

"I'm gonna give you what you need, love. You're okay." 

Basira hides her hot, embarrassed face in Daisy's throat. 

"I'm sorry."

"There's no need to apologise. I just want you to enjoy this. Make sure you feel good, yeah?"

Basira nods against Daisy's skin and focuses on just breathing, on all the places where they're touching. She can hear a heartbeat. She's not sure who it belongs to, but she listens to it slow down until it becomes a faint counterpoint to the rhythm with which Daisy is stroking her back, the tension draining out of her until she's centered and sane again.

"That's it. There you go." 

There's an audible smile in Daisy's voice, and she rewards Basira by sliding her hand back down between them, the glide smooth and so much better without the barrier of underwear. She doesn't tease. Basira's already wet enough for her to push two fingers up into her, stroking her just right, thumb rubbing lazy circles against her clit. 

Of all the shitty things the universe has dumped on her shoulders in the last five months, being alienated from Daisy has been the hardest to bear. Now, Basira feels lit up, not only by the searing intimacy of having Daisy inside her again, but by the familiar, comfortable closeness they've finally managed to find their way back to, dim light and heartbreak easing the way. She doesn't know if this state of grace will outlast the night, but she leans into it with her whole self, pressing their chests together, getting lost in aimless, open-mouthed kisses, trapping Daisy's arm between them so that the movement of her hand is reduced to a deep, steady flex. 

It doesn't feel like she should be able to come from this. When she does, it takes her by surprise, and she chokes out Daisy's name as heat and pleasure trickle through her belly, spiralling all the way down her legs to her toes, enough to fill that cold emptiness to the brim. 

Out to prove a point, or fuck Basira insensible, Daisy doesn't let it throw her off. She shoulders Basira onto her back, changes the angle of her fingers, and presses down on her mons with the heel of her other hand. With her cunt still throbbing from her first orgasm, it takes very little for Basira to come again, hard.

"Bloody _hell_ , Daisy," she pants. "I love it when you do that."

"I know." 

Daisy sounds full of happy satisfaction as she touches her wet fingers to Basira's lips. Dazed and sex-stupid, Basira opens readily, and sucks the taste of herself off them, until they're replaced in her mouth by Daisy's tongue. She can feel her heart beating between her legs. 

Her brain comes back online to Daisy hitching her hips in small jerks against her thigh. A fierce, possessive spark flashes through Basira's bloodstream, and she rolls them over, pulling Daisy’s hand away from where she’d been touching herself. Daisy lets her take charge, easy as anything. Splayed out on her back, the light from the window finally brings her into view, illuminates the private smile tugging at her mouth. Basira is caught by it.

Turns out she's been avoiding Daisy in more ways than one. She can't remember the last time she looked at her. Properly that is. With purpose and with kindness. It's harder to kid yourself when you're paying attention. Easier not to watch as deprivation sets in and carves gaunt, unforgiving lines into someone you're supposed to love. 

She feels stupid. Worse, she feels cruel. Overwhelmingly, she feels the need to make up for neglect and lost time. She presses Daisy's hands into the mattress up near her head, and sits back to drink her in.

Daisy's face and torso are an orange-tinted moonscape. She's so fucking thin. Her profile is thrown into focus, the permanent furrow that lives between her eyebrows catching a wisp of shadow. Basira kisses it, kisses her. 

"I missed you."

"Me too." Daisy's whisper has a crack right through it. 

Basira pulls away again, trails her thumbnails down Daisy's sides, armpit to hip, and back up. Daisy's nipples tighten as she shivers and curves into the touch, making the dips and crests of her upper body flex and rearrange. 

Basira is mesmerised. 

She fumbles for the bowl still on the bedside table and swipes some of the juice left at the bottom with her index and middle fingers, bringing them to hover over Daisy. She hesitates, spoilt for choice, and a drop, two, fall from her fingertips high up on Daisy's chest, quickly pooling in the divot at the base of her throat. Basira chases them with her mouth. 

Daisy squirms, makes a muffled little moan that vibrates under Basira's lips. Emboldened, Basira dips her fingers into the bowl again and again. She marks out the valley between Daisy's bicep and tricep, traces the thin skin on the underside of her breasts, and draws circles around the now protruding bumps of her hip bones. Then she follows each and every beloved line with her tongue. 

Daisy manages to hold herself mostly still for Basira to enjoy, but Basira jealously tracks the small, pleased hitches in her breathing. This time, when she sits back, patches of skin shine slick in the low light. She settles herself between Daisy's legs, hands high up on her thighs, thumbs tracing the outline of her pubic bone. She leans in, and she can smell that Daisy's turned on. Her mouth waters. 

"Where's my hair elastic, Daisy?" 

It takes a few seconds for Daisy to catch up with the question.

"Huh? Uh shit, I put it down in the bed somewhere. I don't know where—here let me," she stammers, scooping Basira's hair into a makeshift ponytail. 

Basira grins, and bends down to put her mouth to work. Daisy is wonderfully responsive, panting before Basira even gets started, rocking up into her tongue, clenching her hands too tight in Basira's hair and apologising, before forgetting herself and doing it again. 

It never fails to give Basira a visceral kick, just how eager Daisy can be for her, and she takes what she wants, until she can't tell where the wetness of her mouth ends and Daisy's begins. The salty mix of them coats her tongue, her chin, clings to her fingers, and beads in the dark hair between Daisy's legs.

She strokes her thumb up and down Daisy's rim, pushes it in to the first knuckle just to stretch her out and slide the tip of her tongue in alongside it. Daisy moans and spreads her legs wider, giving herself leverage to shove her pelvis up into Basira's face and immediately dislodging her.

"Fuck, sorry. I didn't mean to—please do that again."

Something in Daisy's tone sounds fragile, makes Basira pause. She looks up, and Daisy's eyes are clenched closed, her body trembling very finely.

“Daisy, are you okay?”

Daisy swallows. A frustrated edge creeps into her voice, "I—it's a lot. But I want this. I'm allowed to have this, fuck!" 

She flings an arm across her eyes. Basira kisses her knee and waits. She doesn't want to push, but more than that, she wants Daisy to ask. Whatever it is, she's happy to give.

"Can you hold me down?" Daisy says, finally.

"Do you want me to get the harness? Get on top of you?"

"No, this is good. I just need something to push back against. Maybe—go slow?" 

The dragging reluctance Daisy manages to put into that last request would probably be funny under any other circumstances. 

"Okay, of course. I can do that."

Basira repositions herself, slinging an arm over Daisy's stomach and open thigh, using her other hand to press Daisy's hip into the bed. It puts her neck at an awkward angle, but then Daisy sighs and says, "Like that, yeah. That's good," and it stops mattering.

Basira follows Daisy's cues, pushing back when Daisy tests her grip, giving her the grounding pressure she's looking for. Basira's always been heavier, and Daisy's not as strong as she used to be, which makes it easy, mostly. But when Basira closes her lips around the swollen bud of her clit and sucks, the overstimulation makes Daisy's hips twist and buck, catching Basira off-guard. 

She breaks away and rearranges her weight to lean hard on her forearm. Her hand ends up spread across Daisy's collarbones. Not quite on her throat, but close enough to make a point. It pushes a shocky exhale out of Daisy, and she carefully meets Basira's eyes, tilting her chin up and away in an open invitation. 

The light skims across a sharp relief of tendons and veins that stand out just a little too starkly. Basira doesn’t even try to resist. She finishes what she started, and slides her hand the rest of the way up onto Daisy's throat. A tensile thread stretches out in the air between them as they watch each other. Basira doesn't squeeze, or try to collar Daisy, just lets her feel the weight of her hand, leaving the choice to push, or not, to her. 

There’s a whole flood of life right under Basira’s palm, in the solid ridge of Daisy’s windpipe, the interlocking multitude of muscles that contract and release in perfect sequence as she swallows, the strong beat of her blood rushing along. It’s dizzyingly reassuring, on a ridiculous, instinctual level, and Basira runs her thumb down the edge of Daisy's jaw, slotting it into the little nook under the hinge and pressing in where Daisy's pulse thrums closest to the surface.

The tension peaks, then breaks, as Daisy closes her eyes and goes completely boneless under Basira’s touch. Basira’s breath shudders out of her, and she nuzzles her face into Daisy's belly, flushed with a fierce kind of gladness. There’s an edge to what she’s doing for Daisy right now. It feels incredibly important that she still knows how to get it right.

When Daisy's orgasm hits, she lets out a deep, guttural groan that resonates under the hand Basira has splayed out on her sternum. Basira surges upwards, and Daisy wraps her legs around her waist, clinging with all limbs as the aftershocks shake through her. They’re pressed flush together in a sticky mess, Basira’s hair in both their faces, Daisy’s burning, damp cheek against her temple, her cunt leaving wet smears on Basira's lower stomach. 

Her endorphin-soggy brain argues in favour of just staying here, blanketing Daisy. Fuck the monsters and the blood, she could give up her body, make it a rampart. Daisy’s own personal stronghold. Daisy, who's gently scratching through the fine hair at Basira’s nape and _thanking_ her. Basira loves her so much she feels deranged. She has to give voice to it, so it’ll stop taking up all the space where her lungs are supposed to live. 

Daisy responds to her sentimental mumbling by kissing her over and over, anywhere she can reach—crown, hairline, earlobe—until Basira’s laughing and turning her face into it, granting Daisy proper access to her mouth; an effortless lightening of the energy between them so that Basira can breathe again.

Daisy nudges her off eventually. They’re disgusting, and should probably get cleaned up, but they pull the covers up instead, curling around each other in their own stink, like animals in a den.

Daisy's breathing is deep and even. The idle trail her fingers are leaving up and down the length of Basira's spine keeps stopping and starting. 

She sighs, and slurs, “Sorry but m'gonna pass out. The pills have nothing on you, we should do this more often.” 

Basira smiles where Daisy can't see it.

“You’re not funny as you think you are. Go to sleep.” 

"Mmm, at least m'good in bed."

Her sentence descends into indistinct muttering, and Basira gladly lets her have the last word. Feeling Daisy drift off against her is infinitely preferable to all the nights where she has lain down out of obligation, her stiff, restless silence loud enough to echo around their room, the absence of it waking Basira in the early hours, to find their bed empty and Daisy hunched up on the sofa, looking lost and hungry.

The idea of Daisy’s insomnia triggers an unwelcome jolt of nervy disquiet, but her thoughts gutter and stall before they're able to drag her into another anxious spiral. The wheel is running dry, and Daisy’s gentle snoring is pulling her under, too. She gratefully relaxes into it, into Daisy. Tomorrow can wait.

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be a flashback in a longer dasira thing i'm writing, but 5k later it just... didn't fit anymore
> 
> thank you to [margot](https://lesbianomens.tumblr.com/) for unsticking me when i was stuck and to leila for some excellent typo-catching
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](https://benevolentbridgetroll.tumblr.com/)


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